I’ve been using the Randgrid app, and what I miss in drumtracker from randgrid is the ability to do drum rolls. It would be nice if it could be implemented as a mode (the VPPO stuff) so each hit could have individual speeds on the drum rolls.
Also the randgrid application has the ability to reverse the samples by setting sample start and sample end at the opposite spectrum, again this is kind of like the VPPO in drumtracker but “paramterer lock” or “step edit” in randgrid. I like my reveresed drums.

Great app though, the workflow for working with drums is the best I’ve seen on iphone, especially since there there is so much that can be done with the VPPO.

one other thing, the ability to import custom kits, and/or the ability to make custom kits from the internal kits would be nice =)

I don’t know about Randgrid but you can definitely do drum rolls in DrumTracker by painting steps with your right hand while adjusting the Velocity(Volume) simultaneously with your left hand.

Reversings is something currently slated for a future release (probably with an added sample end mode)

Import Custom Kit is high on the next feature list.

Hello Arcane 2006:

You can already alter the sample’s pitch with the VPPO Modes (Velocity, Pan, Pitch and Offset) as explained in the Pattern Panel documentation. Playing on Offset values can shorten the sound, but not in the way you want with the hit hat. Like I said above, adding sample end editing will allow you to do that.

Thanks you all for you feedback, and Gee, we have been planing on doing a tutorial video, but don’t have good equipment on hand and would rather not release a blurry mess. But stay tuned

I would also love the ability to export song or patterns as midi files. This would make drumtracker even better as an on the go sketchtool, then I can continue at home with the exported midi-files in the DAW.

About the drum rolls thing, in randgrid that control makes the drumsound trigger faster than possible with painting each step, kind of like triggering a bunch of 1/128 notes on one step or something like that, the actual speed in which they are triggered is set with the control and the duration I believe is to the next sequencer step. Soo it’s faster than what is possible with sequencer steps. Maybee it’s called drum “flame” ?, anyways it’s a faster drumroll than possible with sequencer steps.

Nice to see that the custom drum kit is high on the next feature kit. But the ability to build a kit from the internal sounds could be very useful even when there is a possibility to import custom kits. When “on the go” it’s nice to be able to swap out that “tom-tom” to something else. This something else could be a bass sound, which could be played with the alter pitch ability you currently have. I don’t remember how it works but for bass notes it would be easier if the pitch function slider jumped according to “notes”. Well, once again a fantastic product you have developed, it’s the best out there for drums in my opinion.

We hear you. We had a pattern export feature (in midi); however, we experienced a serious technical setback this weekend involving the sudden death of a hard drive on a 3 month old Macbook Pro…. Back to square one, but we hope to have it out soon.

I just downloaded it, and it’s great! Keep up the good work. The only thing I see missing is the ability to add Swing to the different drums. This would make the app perfect in my opinion. Unless this is already in the app and I just missed it somehow.

Hi this is a fantastic program. I’m doing whole songs for when the real live drummer can’t make it. It would be really good to be able to start playing from part way through the song (unless I’ve missed something?)!

Nice app, I particularly love the abilitiy to sequence a full song’s worth of loops, which is an advantage over easybeats, which I also bought. I’m finding it really unstable though. It tends to crash out, particularly when changing kits, which is really frustrating. A pad view would be useful, even if just for previewing kits. Importing custom kits would also be a real plus. Looking forward to the ipad version!

Hi,
very nice app with unique features and clean interface, useful for create drumming and then import in other apps (ThumbJam the most).
But i have a request: like as other in the forum, i miss a shuffle/swing control; that would make it perfect!
Thanks.

Hi, I’m interested in your application, it seems really good, but I’d like to know if u are planning a new update, here are my suggestions: Import from pc to iphone/ipod of custom kits or single sounds.
Distortion effect for each track(a delay too).
Amp envelope for every track.
Pitch envelope for every track.
Assignable LFO (to pitch for example)
In my opinion u can’t go wrong with these features u could raise the price too without problems.
I’m really dreaming of a program capable of the things I mentioned(on the iphone/Ipod)
The most important thing is the ability to import custom kits…cya
Thanks anyway for this prg
syquence

We are working on custom kits, not sure if the first iteration will be available on the iPad version or on the iPhone… Aymeric’s got it working, but we need to see if the process can be streamlined. Stay tuned.

We are also looking into effects a little further down the line. The lovely thing about rapid software development is that we make it available as soon as it is implemented and tested, but I can’t give dates…

Hi, I am using v1.8.1 and am unable to scroll on the Song panel in either the pattern list or song structure. I’ve done the tap and drag, is the blank space, on the patterns etc. As a result I can’t edit a song I wrote a couple of months ago. Any suggestions?

Hi
i was stuck with the same problem for a while. it’s a two finger scroll that’s needed: place one finger on the pattern panel then scroll up and down in the song panel with a second finger. It works the other way round if you’ve got more than sixteen patterns in a song to scroll through (ie first finger in the song panel then scroll with the second finger in the pattern panel).

Offset seems to just play the sample at the same time, but starting at a different point in the sample. For a typical percussive sample, the main effect is to make it quieter. A far more useful feature would be to have it shift the playback, like a shuffle control.

Hey gents been loving v2, just upgraded to 2.1 and now my uploaded samples won’t load into the kit and the app keeps crashing out! What’s going on?

P.S. I’ll add my vote to the addition of a swing/shuffle option, that would be very helpful. Also midi export is super handy but it needs to be paired with midi import as well so I can drop my saved patterns back into songs. Cheers very much for a great app guys!

The new sound engine is behaving differently in the simulator and iPhones. It was having problems accepting sound samples in formats other than the one listed below. Version 2.1.1 has just been approved by Apple and should address this bug (thereby accepting your sample again).

However, to reduce the likely hood of conflicts, the preferred sound format is .wav in:

More comments…after using a lot. I come from a recording/studio environment and like to get as much done away from the studio as possible. Here is a list in order of what I would love to have!

(1) As mentioned above, need FULL MIDI (I currently use the full WAV) song export. I end up writing loads of patterns and it takes a lot of time to export each and then string together later when I need to use the MIDI tracks.

(2) Multi-sample random playback. I use Steven Slate Drums, example, it would be nice if I could load in 5 snare samples and the software would randomly choose the sample so that it would lose its “machine-gun” style playback (similar to how Drumagog functions in a DAW).

(3) More “channels.” Since I program metal drums, they always have huge kits. Kick/Snare/3-4 Toms/Rides/2-3 crashes/Splash/Chinas/Hihat Open/Hihat closed. 12-16 “channels” would be awesome.

Other than that, this is the best programmer out there, and it has already lead me to much quicker and better sounding drums than the rest. Being able to load on my own samples is the best feature (especially since I have spent $$ on Slate samples!).

In the new update, I am having an issue with samples playing correctly. I do a lot of double bass drum patterns (constant hits). The new update no longer playes these hits even. It sounds almost like it has a “swing” in the tempo. I can email an example if you need too.

Hi, thanks for this wonderful App.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work anymore on my iPad (last OS) since the last update (2.3). The app simply crashes every time I lauch it. (Everything’s fine on iPhone os 4)

Thank you for this fantastic App. It is perfect for creating beats and copying them to other Apps on my iphone. I don’t use or have the email service so exporting the midi files isn’t possible on my device. Is there another way I can export midi files or is there a plan to include wifi exporting in the future?

Thanks for a great app! I’ve been using it to sequence songs. The ability to add custom sounds is a lot of fun, but I had a suggestion to make it easier.

I’ve been uploading a “piano” sound, then changing the pitch to play melody lines. I’s fun, but very difficult to control. Once a pitch has been selected, it’s difficult to accurately adjust the pitch, since the colors are very close together for the different colors. So, if I want to pitch a note up one semitone, I first have to know its current pitch, and it’s very hard to tell.

A couple solutions:

It would be helpful if the pitch could be adjusted by selecting and then dragging a note up or down.

If the pitches could be displayed on each note, as numbers, it would help to keep things in tune.

You can choose to export patterns or songs in Midi format. Due to the closed nature of the iPhone, the way to retrieve it is by emailing it to yourself. This Midi file can then be imported into the DAW of choice.

On that Note, we have FINALLY completed the Beta of DrumTrackHD for the iPad, and I am pleased to say that you will be able to use iTunes to transfer files to and fro…

It’s also the reason we have been relatively low profile the past few months, as we have 3 apps finally coming out this month. When DTHD is finally available, we are planning a major update of DT8 to incorporate new features. Not to be too self-congratulatory, but making songs on the iPad is so much easier.

When will it be possible to save custom kits as a KIT (to be selected from the kit list). What is holding you guys from not allowing this yet? Creating a “template” song doesn’t feel right at all… Hopefully you guys are considering this already.

Oh, I’m talking DTHD too 🙂
Right now I’m creating my own folders with samples + pic and uploading them to DrumTrackHD.app/HP_Kits, but it would be great to be able to create/save kits in app too. I don’t know how to right the index.dtkit to define Group/ChokeBy though

No. I use PhoneDisk to access the folders. I jailbroke it once just to be able to use custom samples in music apps that didn’t support it. But unjailbroke as soon as I found that PhoneDisk would do the job.

Well, keep up the good work. I’m really enjoying DtHD! Multisample support is excellent!

Loving DTHD. Still a little buggy though.
Velocity range values in custom kit do not seem to save. Am i missing something?
Single sampled tracks revert to 1-127 range.
Multi-sampled tracks become 0-0 or 0-1, rendering the patterns mute until you re-enter the proper velocity values.

Could you send to support(at)simple-is-beautiful.org the process to illustrate the problem. We need to pinpoint how to reproduce this. (This occurs when reloading songs with custom kits that have both single and multiple tracks?)

I have tried to email a song to myself to import the file (lpcm is wav, right?) into my PC DAW, and while it looks like something is happening, I don’t see anything in my email inbox. This method works fine with my other apps, but not with DrumTrackHD. I followed the instructions very carefully…very easy to do, but I get nothing in my inbox!

Even so, this is definetly the best drum app out there hands down, nothing comes close in my humble opinion, and thanks tons for putting it out there! Now if I could only export!

i want to create backup tracks for friends and family. as best i can tell there is currently no way to import patterns and songs into DrumTrack. please add some way to share DrumTrack compositions with other DrumTrack users!

If you use the Render to Disk process for exporting files (via USB and iTunes) you have access to your saved native dtsng files in the root directory. This only allows you to transfer files to and from DrumTrackHD, but you may encounter bugs if your song uses custom samples and custom kits. The Render to Disk process is described in http://www.simple-is-beautiful.org/drumtrackhd_song.php#export

I also have the email issue – I can email midi just fine but audio just shows up a as blank box and email is never sent, even with short songs or single patterns. It is frustrating as emailing audio would be a great feature if it worked.

Could you email this bug to support(at)simple-is-beautiful(dot)org and let us know what version of iPad, iOS and DrumTrackHD you are using? As a general rule, if you do encounter a bug, you can report it to us with and include your hardware and OS configuration and DTHD or DT8 version.

Just started using drumtrack8, nice portable drum machine. Don’t know if I’ve missed this but it would be nice to have a choke feature. Usually used for closed and open hi hats but I’ve been using this recently with long kick drum samples.

Hi, lovely app! I’d like to second Ian’s wish for a hi hat choke. To me, it’s the one thing missing and keeping the program from functioning/sounding much like a 606 or 808. It’s a subtle detail but it adds an essential element of pulsing life to patterns, not to mention it’s how the hats worked on just about every classic drum machine ever made. Acid house just doesn’t jack without it!

I like everything else about DrumTrack8 better than the other iPhone drum machines out there, but lacking the choke means I won’t ever actually use this app and could only recommend it to friends with a serious caveat. I don’t have an iPad, so no DrumTrackHD for me. Are there any plans to add a choke feature to DrumTrack8?

Thanks for the feedback. We’ll take it in consideration, but in light of the current development schedule, can’t confirm yet.

PS DrumTrack HD really is much more ergonomic for managing customized kits, so if this is vital, I strongly recommend upgrading as this feature is already integrated. (Having gotten used to the iPad, I have a hard time going back to the iPhone’s small screen.)

I have some 20 years of experience with drumcomputers, even with programming software implementations, and must congratulate you with your achievements on DrumTrackHD.

My wish list is as follows:

1: I use mainly custom samples. Having them all organised in the same UserSamples folder is not really practical in the long run. I would like to be able to organise my custom samples into subfolders, like BaseDrum, SnareDrum, Clap.

2: When selecting a custom sample, I would like to set the default pitch for that sample. Of course I can change the pitch on a grid level, but I would like to set the default pitch.

3: When you select a custom sample it will be display in the sequencer as “UserSa…abcdef” , only showing the last 6 characters of the sample name. 9 characters are wasted on “UserSa…”. I would like Drum Track HD to not show these 9 characters as they are not really informative.

Hi,
Congratulations on this excellent piece of software,
I’ve had it for less than a month and i already made 2 tracks and a live set with it, i’ve downloaded a bunch of drum machines at the same time and DTHD is the only one i use, never the less two key things are missing for me
So it becomes a perfect live jamming tool
1 midi sync but apparently that is coming
And 2 which i think i haven’t seen anyone mention is the ability for the app to run in the background and share the audio out with other apps so a synth can be played over the beat, i wonder if that’s hard to implement

Hi there,
I just bought Drum Tracker for my iPad yesterday and I’m already in love with it!
I have a few feature requests though…

I would like to be able to select any time signature and have it grouped any way I want. Say if I want a bar of 9/16 grouped 4 2 3. I understand that any time signature is possible already but visually it gets a little confusing when everything is grouped in either 3s, 4s or 6s.

The second feature request is a bit difficult to describe. Say if I had my ride doing a sixteenth note pattern but then I wanted to add a triplet in the middle of the bar. At the moment this sort of thing is impossible. I would like the ability to add a triplet, quintuplet etc. to any sound source and anywhere in the bar without it affecting the rest of the kit. This would help anyone with polyrhythmic ideas.

The last feature request is for a bigger kit. I play metal and most metal kits have like 6 toms and a dozen cymbals. Unless someone can direct me to where I can import one into the app…

I often use it as a way to work on the road on patterns, then upload to my DAW by exporting the MIDI.

However, when I import into my DAW, the notes it uses for each track are strange. From top of the screen to bottom (meaning from typically kick drum to toms), it translates in my DAW to : C1, D1, F#1, A#1, D#1, G#2, A1, C2.

I’m importing MIDI into Pro Tools 8, but as far as I know, PT doesn’t alter the notes on import in any way.

Quick Update on iOS5 conflict: We have identified the source of the bug (changes in how iOS5 handles stereo; Apple Developers must have been grieving too much to include it in their documentation…)
We are also fixing a bug in SoundCloud due to changes in their site, so we hope to have the bug fixed version submitted tonight.

Yes it is related. Both DrumTrack8 and HD are affected by the stereo issue. A bugfix has been submitted already, and we are waiting for Apple to authorize the apps. PS The SoundCloud app has been fixed.

You either tap the bpm button multiple times at the speed you want or touch and drag to change the numerical value. In ios 5 in DT8, this also drags out a tab from the edge that covers the dialog, but BPM still works.

If you have upgraded, rebooted, and still have the problem, let us know what your configuration of hardware, software and ios are.